Clay <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Jul 7, 2:53*pm, spop...@speedymail.org (Steve Pope) wrote:

>> For example, with a maximal-length sequence formed from a
>> polynomial over GF(2), it's often practical to jump to
>> a prescribed point in the middle of the sequence, or to
>> examine the register contents and figure out where you
>> are in the sequence. *Can a Mersenne twister do that?

>Yes you can start the twister anywhere you want in the sequence.
>Likewise a small number (compared to the length) of observations can
>tell you the starting state. It is not for cryptographic use because
>of these properties. I'm not sure how one would measure the distance a
>current state is away from a defined starting state without clocking
>it through all of the intervening states. Here its long period makes
>it take a while!

Thanks.

I've never used the Twister acutally. If I need something
stronger or more random than an LFSR I usually go with DES or AES, or
something derived from them.

Steve